The City of New York has paid a whopping $450,000 settlement in a fedral civil rights lawsuit this week, filed by a gay man who claimed he was falsely arrested for prostitution back in 2008 when an undercover vice officer offered him money for sex in an East Village porn shop.
According to East Village News, at least 41 men were arrested for prostitution in six different Manhattan porn shops in 2008 and 2009, most likely a remnant effect of the Giuliani administration’s promise to crack down on illegal sex shops in the city. According to the settled suit, filed by 58-year-old Robert Pinter, a number of them could have been falsely arrested as a result of “entrapment.”
According to Pinter, he was arrested in 2008 for prostitution despite ever having exchanged money or accepting money for sexual acts, a necessary smoking gun for any prostitution conviction. He reportedly “agreed to consensual sex” with an undercover NYPD officer in Blue Door Video, an adult store on First Ave.
According to reports, the two men left the shop together with the understanding that they would have sex, and that’s when the undercover officer “offered to pay for the sex.” Pinter said he was “caught off guard” by the offer and before he could rebuff, he was arrested.
Several others came forward in an interview with Gay City News in 2009, claiming they had been falsely arrested in similar fashion. The city paid out settlements to at least four other men in similar cases.
In 2013, NYC’s six openly gay and lesbian city council members posted an open letter urging the city to settle Pinter’s lawsuit because it “involves insidious entrapment of a gay man.” They concluded that “such policing tactics, especially when a gay man is involved, bring up very painful memories of an oppressive time in this country when such actions were even more widespread.”
So this is what the NYPD must be doing instead of catching actual gay-bashers.
barkomatic
The NYPD has a long shameful history of entrapment that continues to this day and spans many situations. Their “lucky bag” operation is another example. They deliberately leave behind something valuable on a park bench or other public place and then watch. When a random person comes along and picks up whatever it is–they arrest them for theft. It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between the police and the mafia at times.
Bromancer7
@barkomatic: Well this is what happens when two concurrent mayors transform the local PD into their own personal SS.
Billy Budd
This is Institutionalized prejudice. It cannot be allowed to happen.
Mezaien
If he had brain? he could have contact the GAY mafia.
Cam
The problem for the police is that these guys are no longer afraid of being labeled “Gay”.
It was much easier back in the day when people would pay the fine to keep it quiet that they were in a gay bar or a shop like that. Now, they are trying the same tactics on people who are out and it is backfiring.
Billysees
Hope the majority of the $450,000 and the other payouts went to the victim(s) instead of the lawyers.
Entrapment is bad stuff. Good it blew up in the face of the PD. The council members should be thanked for their efforts to resolve the issue.
But will it happen again?